Review: Meadowlarks shows what makes a family

Kahnawake’s Alex Rice holds a mirror to her face, her eyes brimming with tears as she looks at her reflection. She is Marianne, one of a group of Cree siblings in Tasha Hubbard’s newest film Meadowlarks, who meet for the first time after being separated during the Sixties Scoop.

Marianne looks in the mirror as though she’s never seen herself before, and yet simultaneously as though she’s known this version of herself all along.

That tension between familiarity and unfamiliarity is a constant theme throughout Meadowlarks, particularly in that scene, where Marianne tries on a pair of earrings beaded by a vendor at an art market, cautious as she wonders whether she’s allowed to take up space there.

The vendor asks her if she’s First Nations and she doesn’t initially answer “yes” or “no,” instead replying “I’m from Belgium. I’m visiting family.”

Wrestling with a sense of belonging is pertinent for all the siblings in the film, but especially for Rice’s character, who grew up in Antwerp, Belgium, with little knowledge about her Indigenous identity. Her sister, Gwen (Michelle Thrush) and brother Anthony (Michael Greyeyes) grew up being bounced around the child welfare system, whereas her sister Connie (Carmen Moore) who organized the “reunion” is anxiously striving to find her identity, feeling out of place in her adoptive family after the loss of her adoptive parents.

The group meet in a large holiday house in Banff, the building itself becoming a character within the film. While it’s warm and welcoming, decorated with throw blankets and plush queen-sized beds, it’s unfamiliar and almost too big, its high ceilings and domineering windows at times making the characters seem small and isolated, an apt feeling as they all deal with their individual struggles to find themselves within their newfound family.

Rice carries Marianne with grace throughout the film, noticeably different from her siblings because of her thick Flemish accent and openness about her happy memories of childhood in Belgium.

We watch as she navigates the grief of coming to terms with the scale of her loss having grown up disconnected from her Indigenous identity, and as she holds space for that sadness while sharing her story with her new siblings - at one point, she visits a gift store and picks up a stuffed animal, recalling her own childhood where she had access to playthings, in stark contrast to Gwen, who refuses to even enter the store.

Another standout performance comes from Moore, who plays the feisty Gwen, rigid with stoicism and attitude throughout most of the film. Her anger is accessible and apparent - when she’s hurt by a reveal, she shows that with rage rather than sadness.

It’s only rare moments that we see Gwen’s inner child revealed in her emotions, beyond her hardened adult self, a vivid picture of the enduring hurt survivors feel.

The film itself is based on Hubbard’s 2017 documentary, Birth of a Family, which follows the story of four Sixties Scoop survivors who connect for the first time and piece together their family history.

In Meadowlarks, Hubbard draws from those stories and builds upon them to show the hugely varied experiences that one family can have from the Sixties Scoop, demonstrating the ongoing wounds and the ways to heal them in what proves itself to be an understated production carried by strong performances and cinematography.

For survivors of the Sixties Scoop who may be watching, much of the dialogue feels not just a message of healing for the characters within the film, but also a direct, personal address, particularly the comments from a group of community elders who meet with the siblings and listen to their story: “You have to find the pieces that belong to you and put yourselves back together. You are each other’s pieces. We know that there are many of you out there, we never forgot you.”

A special screening of Meadowlarks will be taking place tonight, (Friday, November 28), at the Cineplex Forum in Montreal, starting at 6:30 p.m. Kahnawà:ke Shakotiia’takéhnhas Community Services (KSCS) has organized a bus to take 50 community members to the screening, which will include a 30 minute Q&A with Rice, departing from the Kahnawake Arena at 4:45 p.m.

Details to sign up for the shuttle, which will depart Montreal to return to Kahnawake at 9 p.m., can be found on KSCS social media channels.

More screenings will take place throughout the weekend, with times to be posted online.

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